Return, then, O my Son, the coal being extinct in life, upon the water for thirty days, as I shall note to thee - and henceforth thou art a crowned king, resting over the fountain and drawing from thence the Auripigment dry without moisture. And now I have made the heart of the hearers, hoping in thee, to rejoice even in their eyes, beholding thee in anticipation of that which thou possessest.
Observe, then, that the water was first in the air, then in the earth; restore thou it also to the superiors by its proper windings, and not foolishly altering it; then to the former spirit, fathered in its redness, let it be carefully conjoined.
Know, my Son, that the fatness of our earth is sulphur, the auripigment sirety, and colcothar, which are also sulphur, of which auripigments, sulphur, and such like, some are more vile than others, in which there is a diversity, of which kind also) is the fat of gluey matters, such as are hair, nails, hoofs, and sulphur itself, and of the brain, which too is auripigment; of the like kind also are the lions' and cats' claws, which is sirety; the fat of white bodies, and the fat of the two oriental quicksilvers, which sulphurs are hunted and retained by the bodies.
I say, moreover, that this sulphur doth tinge and fix, and is held by the conjunction of the tinctures; oils also tinge, but fly away, which in the body are contained, which is a conjunction of fugitives only with sulphurs and albumninous bodies, which hold also and detain the fugitive ens.
Orpiment; Auripigment.
A trisulphide of arsenic, of the formula AsjS3, = sulphur 39 per cent, arsenic, 61; hardness, 1.5; specific gravity, 3.4 to 3.5. Color, lemon yellow. This mineral occurs usually associated with realgar at the localities mentioned below.
Occurrences.—Realgar and orpiment are very beautiful, though not abundant minei'als which occur associated with ores of silver and lead in various European mining regions and also those of Japan (Specimen No. 11864, U.S.N.M.), Hungary (Specimen No. 66813, U.S.N.M.), Bohemia. Transylvania, and Saxony. They have been reported in the United States in beds of sandy clay beneath lava in Iron County, Utah, and form the so-called "Arsenical gold ore" of the Golden Gate Mine, Mercur, Tooele County, this same State (Specimen No. 53363, U.S.N.M.); also in San Bernardino County, California; Douglas County, Oregon (Specimen No. 62101, U.S.N.M.), and in minute quantities in the geyser waters of the Yellowstone National Park.
Concerning The Alchemical Virtues In Arsenic
—A certain name was invented and put forth by our ancestors, namely, electrum. Electrum is a metal proceeding from another metal, and unlike the metal from which it descends. For example : Copper turns to white metal. When its redness is removed it is called electrum. In like manner, from copper, by means of cadmia, is made orichalcum, and this is called red electrum. These different kinds of electrum certain alchemical sciolists and artists reckoned as silver, and sometimes took in place of gold; nor did they understand or believe anything eWe save that thin was silver, and so that silver could be produced from copper. Omitting the name of electrum, they took it for silver or for gold, and did not leave off their investigations so long as a house or a court remained. I point out this in order that error may be avoided, and that due consideration may be given to the questions, What is electrum ? what is gold ? and what is silver ? and that in this way no rash measures may be taken
The Hermetic and Alchemical Writings of Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus ... By Paracelsus
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